A New Haircut -- Like the New Do?

You have to love all the various kinds of writing out there, even the ones you love to hate. You can't even begin to imagine at the thought processes that went through the writers mind that caused them to arrive at the word choices they did, how they built and constructed their passage or post to make it the fortified (or crumbling) piece of writing that they did. A difficult concept to grasp, really.

The style of writing sometimes evokes feelings of elation, joy, sadness, annoyance, anger or hatred. Each style takes you along on the journey by a different means. Such a strange thing, how twenty-six letters can be combined for form hundreds of thousands of words that can be combined to form billions upon billions of sentences, each with their own way of conveying information and feeling and stringing you along on the tale the writer wants to tell.

The style of writing used by each poster in their duel posts differs greatly. Some are concise, to the point, others are verbose, still arriving at their destination while painting a grand picture, and yet others still are vague and ambiguous about what is happening. Each is effective in its own right, and each is to be loved for the good traits about them. Of course, some styles, those that are more vague or ambiguous than the norm, shouldn't be loved so much.

In dueling, with any style, you are trying to portray to your readers and your opponent specifically, what is happening, and when your style of writing fails to portray this, you have failed as a writer. While it is good to leave some things open to interpretation, doing so in a dueling environment means setting yourself up for a long fall.

Depending upon where you role play or duel at, you'll encounter varying styles in use. You mustn't decide that just because a style is different that it's necessarily bad. So a person likes something more direct and short--directness is good, as long as the person doesn't forget key details. Verbosity is also good, as long as you don't get lost in the wording to the point where it all becomes vague nonsense.

A style that uses short posts with vagueness is just as bad as a long post that employs massive amounts of verbosity. You won't be able to understand either, and in one case (the short) there isn't enough meat to the post to understand what is happening, and in the other case (the long) you get lost in all the words being thrown at you. In both cases, you end up not even knowing what's what.

It is good to be clear about what you're doing in your style, of what you're planning on doing, and how something you've done in your post is accomplished. Lapsing over details doesn't win you over points and just confuses the hell out of everyone. Then again, including unnecessary information won't win any points either. Try and find a happy medium. No easy task, mind you, and even I can't claim I've found it yet.

So which style is better? Neither one is better than the other. You should develop your own style, love it. Practice with it, evolving it and make it better with time. Your style can be completely your own. After all, nobody writes like you can because they don't think like you, although some might emulate it. However, when looking at your own style and deciding whether it’s vague or concise, short or long, ask yourself "Does this convey to my opponent exactly what I want it to?" If you can't answer that, it might be time for a re-tooling.

 

- W. Visarett